From the moment the news broke of a mass shooting on Park Avenue on Monday, misinformation careened through social media, declaring the massacre an act of Islamic terrorism or blaming Zohran Mamdani, who is seeking to become the city’s first Muslim mayor.
The New York Times
A recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel discussing the use of antidepressants during pregnancy largely amounted to misinformation or facts taken out of context, according to several psychiatrists who tuned in to the meeting.
NBC News
Traditional news media are losing influence in the U.S., with, for the first time, most people accessing news via social media and video networks.
Forbes / Reuters Institute
A child's death from measles has sparked urgent calls from British public health officials to get children vaccinated, as the UK faces an onslaught of misinformation on social media, much of it from the United States.
Agence France-Presse
Falling for clickbait is easy these days, especially for those who mainly get their news through social media. Have you ever noticed your feed littered with articles that look alike?
Binghamton University
Nedzad Avdic stood on a gravel plateau with four men and boys with their hands tied behind their backs, preparing for death. Just 17, Avdic had been captured by Bosnian Serb forces days earlier. Now, he stood yards from an execution squad.
NBC News
In 2021, future vice president JD Vance delivered a speech titled “The Universities Are the Enemy.” A few years later, during his campaign, Donald Trump called college leaders ‘Marxist maniacs.’ Now their administration is using the full force of the federal government to investigate long-standing conservative complaints about universities, making sweeping demands and cutting billions of dollars in funding.
The Washington Post
Psychological warfare has no known origin story. By the time the Chinese classic The Art of War was written, likely 2,500 years ago, the practice was already widely used. In the 19th century, militaries realized that uncertainty and chaos could be weaponized: When an enemy is confused by multiple conflicting accounts of what’s happening, they are vulnerable and easily manipulated.
Greater Good Magazine
Manipulating public perception for financial gain is nothing new. A striking example is the 1835 “Great Moon Hoax,” when The Sun, a New York newspaper, falsely claimed the discovery of lunar civilizations – boosting its sales and reputation before later admitting to the deception.
World Economic Forum
Days before Oklahoma Democrats were planning to elect a party leader, phones started buzzing. A recording began circulating of a voice, claiming to be state Rep. John Waldron, making inflammatory racial remarks about his opponent for party chair. A local news publication jumped on the story. Except Waldron, who eventually won the election, said it wasn’t him.
The Oklahoman
The Environmental Protection Agency last week said it has placed 139 employees on leave after they signed a ‘declaration of dissent’ accusing the agency of "unraveling" health and environmental protections for political reasons. The letter and EPA pushback escalates internal and public disputes over the agency's deregulatory moves under President Trump.
AXIOS
As reports of last week’s fire on Canfield Mountain and the subsequent ambush of firefighters began to flow, misinformation began spreading almost faster than the flames themselves. North Idaho residents reported reading inaccurate updates on critical details of the shooting, including the number of victims, the number of perpetrators and the identities of those involved.
Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review
Misinformation spreads through society much like a contagious disease, rapidly moving through social networks and influencing beliefs, behaviors and confirming biases, a College of Charleston study shows. This process, known as social contagion, is especially potent online, where repeated exposure to false information shapes what people see as normal or widely accepted.
The Conversation
From medically unqualified influencers pushing expensive supplements online, to nurses peddling myths about pregnancy, the author had to find out all she could about PCOS on her own.
The Guardian
Well-known AI chatbots can be configured to routinely answer health queries with false information that appears authoritative, complete with fake citations from real medical journals, Australian researchers have found.
Reuters
Denmark is taking steps toward enacting a ban on the use of “deepfake” imagery online, saying such digital manipulations can stir doubts about reality and foster misinformation.
The Associated Press
In September 2021, anti-vaccine groups on social media, including X, falsely claimed hospitals were murdering COVID-19 patients by withholding treatments like ivermectin, convincing some families to attempt removing critically ill loved ones from ICUs.
The Integrity Project
Federal agencies are rehiring and ordering back from leave some of the employees who were laid off in the weeks after President Donald Trump took office as they scramble to fill critical gaps in services left by the Department of Government Efficiency-led effort to shrink the federal workforce.
CNN
The dominance of social media platforms, coupled with heightened distrust of traditional news outlets, allows leaders rapid dissemination of unfiltered information and propaganda, that leverages fear, instills division, and exploits confirmation biases to manipulate public opinion and consensus.
The Integrity Project
The media agency overseen by Kari Lake plans to lay off more than 600 more journalists in a move that reporters for Voice of America said “spells the death” of the organization that began operations during World War II.
Arizona Republic / USA Today
